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Many of our men slept; if ever a wayfarer crossed the bridge hard by he was stopped, gagged, and trussed in a rope's end. But wayfarers were few, and all were wandering afoot. I was sorry for two lasses, who crossed on some business of their farm, but there was no remedy. He sent Barthelemy and another to waken any that slept, and bade all be ready at a word.
Nothing of this did I think aboard The Humane Hopwood. I was too young to have any thought at all, save of rage and anguish when it pleased Captain Handsell, being in a cheerful mood, to belabour me, till I was black and blue, with a rope's end.
When one of them started me with a rope's end, he would sing out, "That's for you, `Happy Jack." Another would exclaim, "Go and swab the deck down, `Happy Jack;" or, "`Happy Jack, go and help Mango to clean out the caboose, I hope you are happy now pleasant work for a young gentleman, isn't it?"
"I'm forced to listen to you now," he went on more gutturally, as the paroxysm having found vent began to pass, "but watch yourself that you make no bad reckoning, or you'll regret this business until the rope's round your neck. You'll get nothing out of me but what you take. Now then, be sharp. What are you going to do?" The half-breed grinned. "You're mighty raw oh the hide jest now, I guess.
Seize the rascal, men, and see ye keep him fast whilst I convey this precious paper within and send it to the King." He hurried away, leaving the prisoner in the grip of the halberdiers. "Now is my evil luck ended at last," muttered Hendon, "for I shall dangle at a rope's end for a certainty, by reason of that bit of writing. And what will become of my poor lad! ah, only the good God knoweth."
The common shroud knot is made by opening up the strands of a rope's end as for a short splice and placing the two ends together in the same way. The "French Shroud Knot" is far neater and better, but is a little harder to make.
"Now, Johnny Wickes," Macleod said to the boy, who was quite blinded and bewildered, but otherwise apparently not much the worse, "swallow a mouthful of this, you young rascal; and if I catch you imitating a dolphin again, it is a rope's end you'll have, and not good Highland whiskey." Johnny Wickes did not understand; but he swallowed the whiskey, and then he began to look about him a bit.
Ascending from the forecastle on one occasion, he found every soul napping, and forthwith went about his capers. Fastening a rope's end to each sleeper, he rove the lines through a number of blocks, and conducted them all to the windlass; then, by heaving round cheerily, in spite of cries and struggles, he soon had them dangling aloft in all directions by arms and legs.
Last of the wretches brought before Demetrius came Phaon. The freedman had been roughly handled; across his brow a great welt had risen where a pirate had struck him with a rope's end. His arms were pinioned behind his back. He was perfectly pale, and his eyes wandered from one person to another as if vainly seeking some intercessor. "Euge!
I knew that he had the disposition to flog me with a rope's end, or anything else for he still harboured a heart full of malice against me I well knew that he was not wanting in the will; had we been in some corner of the earth all alone by ourselves, I should not have been astonished at him flogging me almost to death not a bit of it. But what surprised me was his daring to do so there and then.
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